Hon Abdulmumin Jibrin is not done with Speaker Dogara yet. Actually, he’s not yet done with the House of Representatives leadership. The embattled member of the lower Federal legislative chamber who has been having a running battle with the Speaker for weeks now, was on twitter yesterday to accuse the speaker of having cornered a total sum of N1.5 billion since 2007 when Dogara first got into the House.
The amount, Jibrin said, was supposed to constitute the ‘running cost’’ of Dogara’s office, first as a legislator and then for whatever other role he was appointed to play within the House. According to Jibrin, these funds are just drawn by House members and converted to personal funds, without regard for the ‘running of the offices’ which they are appropriated for.
Jibrin, who represents Kiru/Bebeji Federal constituency of Kano State, said in a tweet;
He didn’t end there. He went further to mention 9 other principal officers of the House and the amount they have converted for personal use, out of the ‘running costs’ allocated to their offices since the day each of them became a member of the House of Representatives.
He said; ‘’Deputy Speaker Yusuf Lasun has been in the house from 2011 to date. He has received about N800m.’’
He equally named House Leader Femi Gbajabiamila as having received about N1.2b; Deputy House Leader Umar Buba Jibril, N1.2b, Chief Whip Alhassan Doguwa, N1.2b; Deputy Whip Pally Isumafe Iriase, N700m; Minority Leader Leo Ogor, N1.2b.
Other leaders named by Jibrin are Deputy Minority Whip Umar Barde Yakubu, whom he said received N700m; Minority Whip whom he called ‘’Chuma’’, N800m; and Deputy Minority Whip Binta Bello whom he said had received N700m.
Jibrin said the ten principal officers had taken about ten billion naira from Nigeria.
The lawmaker was, however, silent on what himself received from 2011 – when he got elected into the House of Representatives – to date. He also did not say if he rejected the running costs accorded to his office. It is unclear if he received and later returned the money to the federal government. In defining running cost before his chain of tweets that listed the ten principal officers and the amounts they collected, he noticed that ‘running cost was money collected by many members, with a few exception, and used as personal funds.
The Speaker and other house leaders are yet to respond to Hon Jibrin’s latest accusation.